


Lost Together

by Enfilade



Series: And If We're Lost [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Fulcrum's overactive imagination, Kissing, M/M, Nightmares, Robots, Sharing a Bed, kissing robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Fulcrum's first night on the W.A.P. and he's still not sure he hasn't jumped from the frying pan into yet another fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Together

**Author's Note:**

> ...because it's the holidays, have some Scavengers. :)
> 
> Rated "T" for "Fulcrum can imagine worse stuff than actually happens in this story."

Lost Together 

__I stand before this faceless crowd  
and I wonder why I bother  
so much controlled by so few  
stumbling from one disaster to another  
I've heard it all so many times before  
it's all a dream to me now  
a dream to me now  
And if we're lost  
then we are lost together… 

\--Blue Rodeo, “Lost Together” 

  


Fulcrum did his best to listen, but the Weak Anthropic Principle did strange things to his orderly engineer’s mind. Currently that mind was calculating and re-calculating weight and balance principles and throwing up error messages all over the place. The corridor he and the other Scavengers stood in was half filled with crates at one end, leaving a passage just barely wide enough for Spinister to squeeze through. From what he’d seen, most of the ship was like this, a veritable flying hovel of hoarded scrap. He’d rounded down the weight estimates three times now and still the numbers told him the thing couldn’t possibly be spaceworthy. How ever did Crankcase coax it off the ground? 

“…have to pick someone to bunk with,” Krok was saying. 

No, he couldn’t have heard that properly. “Uh…what? Excuse me?” 

Krok repeated himself, enunciating his words. “You will…have to…pick…someone…to bunk with.” 

Behind him, Crankcase glowered and drew his finger across his throat in an eloquent gesture. 

Right. Not Crankcase, then. 

Fulcrum frowned; the order made no sense. The K-class mech looked up and down the corridor, counting eight…ten…twelve rooms. 

“Oh. Yeah.” Misfire scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, I never told you most of the rooms are being used for storage.” 

“Storage?” Fulcrum repeated. “Storing what?” 

“We’re scavengers,” Misfire repeated. 

“Expropriation specialists,” Krok corrected. 

“Yeah. So…it’s stuff we’ve scaveng…er…acquired.” 

“What kind of…of stuff?” Fulcrum spluttered. 

Misfire shrugged. “You know. Stuff.” 

“Lots of stuff,” Spinister added, and pressed a door latch helpfully. A veritable cascade of junk spewed from within, falling like a breaking wave into the corridor. Fulcrum found himself knee-deep in…in scrap metal and dirty tarps and half-used cans of paint, in scratched glass and grimy plastic and outdated datapads, in rusty nails and bits of cloth and all manner of assorted junk. 

“That’s a lot of stuff,” Fulcrum said weakly. 

Spinister beamed. 

“So pick,” Crankcase growled and folded his arms. “Someone else, if you know what’s good for you.” He ignored Krok’s admonishing glare. 

Fulcrum took a step back. The courage he’d found to press his case against the D.J.D. had deserted him utterly. It struck him that he was in a very precarious position, outnumbered five to one on a strange ship. The Scavengers appeared to be a friendly bunch, but who knew what might happen if he transgressed against some unknown but inviolate social rule? 

He forced himself to take a deep breath. Share, with one of the Scavengers. 

Okay. Crankcase was right out. It was obvious the other mech didn’t want a roommate. Crankcase wasn’t that bad, really—he was just an introvert, happiest when he could be alone at the controls of a spacecraft, and the love affair between Crankcase and the Weak Anthropic Principle was bound to go down in history as one of Cybertron’s greatest romances, provided Fulcrum didn’t blunder into the middle of it. If he did, well, Crankcase was liable to snap and toss him out the airlock one night. Nope. Definitely not. 

Spinister was right out too. Fulcrum would never get a good night’s recharge again if he shared a room with the Scavengers' medic. He’d be far too frightened that Spinister might take a notion that he was “snoring funny” and the only reasonable solution would be to pump him full of bullets. Fulcrum had survived far too much to wake up dead at Spinister’s hands now. 

Krok? He was probably the sanest of the bunch, and genuinely cared about his troops, but Fulcrum had been a Decepticon long enough to know that nobody liked the new guy who sucked up to the commanding officer. Krok needed his space to do…commander things…and Fulcrum had not survived as long as he had by antagonizing his fellow soldiers. No. No way was he gonna be that guy. 

Which left… 

“Can’t he have Flywheels’ room?” Crankcase asked Krok. 

Fulcrum breathed a sigh of relief that the pilot had asked the question on the K-classer’s mind. He hadn’t wanted to bring up the Scavengers’ deceased comrade, but there was no sense in leaving a perfectly good room empty sitting and… 

“Grimlock’s in there,” Krok said. “Though I suppose if he wants a Dynobot for a roommate, that would be okay.” 

No. No, Fulcrum definitely did not want a brain-damaged Autobot murder machine for a roommate. 

No broken Grimlock. No crabby Crankcase. No violent weirdo Spinister. No officer-ly Krok. That left… 

Fulcrum turned to Misfire, his expression falling. Oh, Primus, he was never going to have another moment of quiet for the rest of his natural life. 

Misfire, at least, didn’t seem upset at the choice. “Loser!” he squealed, wrapping Fulcrum in an unwanted hug, “we’re gonna be roomies!” 

* 

There was only one berth. 

Fulcrum squinted at the pile of crap on the other side of the room, hoping he could discern a berth under th….no. No, that was a table, and a small shelving unit. 

Dear Primus, but Misfire was a slob. Fulcrum gritted his dentae and tried not to twitch. If he dimmed his optics, he wouldn’t have to look at the disaster area that was Misfire’s—and his—personal quarters. 

Oh, but the mess was even worse when he couldn’t see it. If he could only look at it, he could start organizing it in his mind—figuring out where to put what. Sooner or later the room would be neatly and efficiently organized, just as his quarters had been during his engineering career, terraforming B’lahr 39\. The obsolete datapads, for example, could be neatly stacked one beside another along the back wall… 

“So, whaddya wanna do?” Misfire asked, bouncing up adn down on the edge of the berth. He reached into a drawer, pulled out a half eaten bag of Data Chipz, tossed a handful into his mouth, chewed, and held out the bag to Fulcrum. “Chip?” 

There was a whole host of reasons for a negative answer, including “ _how old are those?_ ” and “ _how long has that bag been open?”_ and _“where have_ you _r fingers been?”_

“No, thanks,” Fulcrum said weakly. 

“Suit yourself.” Misfire talked with his mouth open, and no sooner was the sentence done than a second handful of chips followed the first. He continued to stare at Fulcrum, as though expecting the K-classer to provide some sort of entertainment, and Fulcrum’s spinal struts crawled when he remembered what sort of entertainment warriors like Misfire usually wanted from scrawny support staffers like him. He’d always been lucky enough to lie low and avoid warriors’ attention, but on a ship like the W.A.P., there was no other game in town. His luck had finally run out. 

…Maybe. So far he’d been pretty, well, lucky in the luck department. Perhaps the streak would hold just a little longer. “I’m, um, really tired,” Fulcrum said with a hopeful smile. 

“Tired already?” Misfire’s voice rang with disappointment. “I mean, I can see how almost getting killed by the D.J.D. wears a guy out, but you were unconscious for, like, decades before that….” 

“And I didn’t sleep an awful lot before the Big Jump and it’s just been kind of one thing after another and you know I think I’m still coming down from all the adrenaline, so, I guess I’ll just sleep on the floor then,” Fulcrum babbled. He rubbed his foot against a mangy rug, trying to wipe off a strange sticky residue he’d stepped in. It smelled like old oil. He hoped it was just a little spilled oil. 

“Don’t be stupid, it’s a double sized berth.” 

“Really, I’m okay.” 

“…and sometimes the floor’s got turborats. Spinister keeps trying to exterminate them but they just keep coming back,” Misfire said, and proceeded to chew with his mouth open. “I have no idea why.” A sprinkle of energon crumbs drifted down onto the rug. 

“The berth it is.” 

* 

Fulcrum curled on his side, facing the wall, and tried to tell himself that this wasn’t so bad. In fact, there were a lot of things that were ever so much worse than this. Like…Being dead! Being siphoned alive and torn apart by the Scavengers! Being devoured by eldritch horrors in a crashed Worldsweeper! Being tortured by the D.J.D.! Exploding to death! All things that had been very real possibilities in his very recent memories. 

He was a very, very lucky mech indeed, and now all he had to do was dim his optics, turn off his brain and ignore the fact that Misfire was lying on his back on the other side of the berth and watching a vid on one of the obsolete datapads. 

Fulcrum saw the soft glow of the pad outlining his shadow against the wall; the only light still illuminating the room. Heard the music of the soundtrack, even though Misfire had turned it down. And felt, all too acutely, the warmth of Misfire’s airframe just a few scant inches away. 

Finally, Misfire turned the pad off, and the room fell into darkness. 

There. Misfire was going to sleep. Now Fulcrum could also go to sleep. Fulcrum could… 

Gasp as Misfire’s arm wrapped over his side. 

The warrior’s hand splayed open on Fulcrum’s chest. Misfire’s chest radiated heat as he cuddled against Fulcrum’s back. 

Fulcrum tried to modulate his breathing, to keep it slow and even when all he really wanted to do was hyperventilate and panic. He should have known better than to go to another mech’s berth. Misfire was a warrior-class, and he was just a technician—K-class or no K-class, he wasn’t a soldier, not really, and when a warrior picked out a techie there was really only one way it could end. Fulcrum felt his joints freezing up again, just like they had during the Jump, and as his body seized up and his mind started spinning, his last little bit of sanity told him to hold on, just hold on and soon it would be over… 

Fulcrum lost track of how long he waited. Gradually he began to get an inkling that if Misfire intended to…to blow off steam, he was taking his damned sweet time about it. Fulcrum lay there in the dark, feeling his joints relax, and debating the wisdom of craning his neck to see if he could get a look at his berthmate. Was it possible that Misfire was asleep? 

Maybe. 

It was also possible that Misfire was lying in wait, readying himself to pounce, and the instant Fulcrum moved, Misfire would be on him, pinning him down, tearing at his cover guards…or tearing out his fuel pump. Again. 

What if all the Scavengers were cannibals, siphoning from the living as well as the dead? Or perverts? Or perverted cannibals? 

So Fulcrum waited. Sipped in a breath. Waited. Tried to ignore an ache in his shoulder. Waited some more. 

Eventually the waiting became its own torture, and Fulcrum searched deep within himself for the desperation and recklessness that had sent him jumping off the edge of the wall, plummeting towards Tarn. 

Fulcrum half-rolled and looked behind him. 

Misfire was sound asleep. 

Fulcrum flopped onto his back and pulled air deep into his vents, feeling like a colossal ass. 

Misfire snuffled, snored a little. Fulcrum didn’t care. Misfire could snore like a chainsaw if he wanted to. Fulcrum had been afraid of him for absolutely no reason. 

Then Misfire trembled. Fulcrum could feel the warrior’s airframe shaking like metal siding in a strong wind. The jet ‘con’s optics were dark, but his mouth twisted and a whimper tore out. 

Fulcrum didn’t know what Misfire was dreaming about, but Fulcrum was suddenly certain he had a pretty good idea how Misfire felt. There had to be a certain commonality of experience that led a mech to a berth on the W.A.P., to a home with the Scavengers. They all knew a few things about pain and loss and how it felt when hope seemed to shine so close and yet always just a handspan’s out of reach. They all had to feel those jaws of doom opening behind them, ready to swallow them whole if their luck ever ran out. 

“Hey,” he said softly, wrapping a hand over Misfire’s shoulder and shaking gently. “Hey, wake up.” 

Misfire’s optics illuminated. He focused on Fulcrum and froze; even the breath in his vents fell silent. 

“It’s me, Fulcrum.” 

The jet remained frozen. 

Fulcrum quirked his mouth in a smile. “You know. Loser?” 

Understanding, and a big grin, spread over Misfire’s face. 

The next thing Fulcrum knew, he was being tackled onto the bunk by a squealing Decepticon warrior. He was flat on his back, arms hopelessly tangled up in wings and shoulders, Misfire kneeling over him, Misfire’s chest pressing down on his and yet somehow he wasn’t afraid at all. Misfire was just…just so glad to see someone coming to save him from the nightmares in his past. 

Him. Fulcrum the scrawny little techie. Fulcrum the coward. Fulcrum had saved someone. “This is going to be _awesome_ ,” Misfire whispered, and Fulcrum did not feel any need to qualify the statement with such things as _“-er than dying.”_

Instead, he wrapped his arms around the warrior’s neck, and grinned for just an instant before Misfire’s mouth covered his. 

It had been a long time since Fulcrum had felt this way, and Fulcrum didn’t remember it being this intense. Perhaps he’d been doing it wrong, before. This had to be what _happy_ was supposed to feel like. 


End file.
